There is still a market for racial politics
After unsuccessful efforts to take on Umno in the past, it is understandable why Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s new party is open to Malays and Bumiputeras only.
By Cheah See Kian
Former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad explained why he had set up the racial party.
According to him, direct members of the newly-formed Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) would only be from the Bumiputera population as the only way to compete with Umno was to have a party where it could give the people in the rural constituencies and the unsophisticated urban constituencies the kind of comfort associated with Umno’s kind of race-based politics.
He was commenting on some politicians and critics who had said that he should not have advocated race-based politics but to conform to the needs of the time in promoting multi-racial politics.
He went straight to the heart of the matter to explain that Umno was all the while a race-based party, and with the cooperation of other race-based political parties it had managed to garner the support of all the races.
He opined that the present leaders in Umno had forgotten completely the purpose for which it was formed. Therefore, that is why he formed the new party to compete with Umno directly.
In fact, what Mahathir had said is a summary of the political history of the country. Also, he had learned from the failure of former Umno leaders who left Umno to set up their own political parties. Hence, from the very beginning he has made it clear that it is a race-based party in order to gain the support of Malays.
For instance, before World War II, there was the Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM) formed in 1937, with its leader being Ahmad Boestamam.
In 1942, when the Japanese army occupied Malaya, Singapore, Borneo and Indonesia, all political parties were being incorporated into one party called Peninsular Indonesian Association, which had a close relationship with the Indonesian Nationalist Party (INP) led by General Soekarno.
However, when the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the whole plan was disrupted.
On one side Soekarno had declared the independence of the Republic of Indonesia. On the other side, in September 1945, a group of Malay leftists had formed the Malay Nationalist Party (MNP) led by Burhanuddin Helmy (who later became president of PAS in 1956), Boestamam (who set up Parti Rakyat Malaya in 1955) and Ishak Muhammad (who later became president of Parti Rakyat Malaya in 1962).
At one time MNP claimed to have 100,000 members, and had cooperated with Soekarno’s INP. But the party was closed down by the British over accusations that it had been infiltrated by the Communists.
The following year (1946), a series of Malay congresses led by Johor Menteri Besar Dato’ Onn Jaafar were held, and Umno was formed in May of the same year.
It also signified the emergence of the rightist Malay political movement, which strongly opposed the Malayan Union, alleging that it’s Constitution was against the special position of Malays.
As a result, the Malayan Union was then replaced by the semi-autonomous Federation of Malaya. In 1954, Umno, MCA and MIC had formed the Alliance and in the 1955 general election, Alliance recorded a sweeping victory, and with that, racial politics had found a living soil.
In 1951, Dato’ Onn left Umno to form the Independence of Malaya Party, and later changed the name to Parti Negara in 1954 which advocated a multi-racial political approach. He left Umno because the party rejected his idea of opening the party to all Malayans.
He had hoped to become the national leader of all people by embracing all races. However, in the 1955 general election, Parti Negara failed miserably, Dato’ Onn himself was defeated.
After the failure, in the 1959 general election, Dato’ Onn turned to the race-based political line and focused in Terengganu. With the cooperation of PAS, Dato’ Onn was elected as a Member of Parliament, while four candidates from Parti Negara had also been elected as state assemblymen.
Parti Negara then formed a coalition Terengganu state government together with PAS.
Unfortunately, six months later some PAS and Parti Negara state assemblymen crossed over to Umno, resulting in the downfall of the coalition state government. In 1962, with the demise of Dato” Onn, Parti Negara had also vanished.
The failure of Dato’ Onn also reminds us about Minister for Agriculture and Co-operatives Abdul Aziz (who was an Umno vice-president) who left Umno in 1963 and formed the National Convention Party to join the left wing Malayan Peoples’ Socialist Front.
However, due to wrong timing (the confrontation of Malaysia and Indonesia had erupted), in the 1964 general election, people were worried that the left wing political parties might turn to Indonesia, so they backed the Alliance party, which won the election with an overwhelming majority.
Three major divisions in Umno
One year later (1965), following Abdul Aziz’s arrest and detention (he was accused of attempting to form a government in exile with the support of Indonesia), his party had also disappeared.
In 1987, Umno was once again faced with a third major split. This time, the cause was Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Musa Hitam joining forces to fight for the party leadership against Mahathir’s team. When the attempt failed, Tengku Razaleigh left Umno to form Semangat 46 (although it was a Malay party, it did not flaunt racial words).
During the 1990 general election, Tengku Razaleigh thought that the situation was in favour of his party and that he could possibly defeat Umno. However, it turned out that the party could only win eight parliamentary seats. Out of frustration, Tengku Razaleigh changed the party’s name to Parti Melayu Semangat 46, and renounced its multi-racial stance.
In the 1995 general election, opposition parties were in a mess. The cooperation among Parti Melayu Semangat 46, PAS and DAP was more an illusion than real.
The more special case was the Reformasi movement propagated by Anwar Ibrahim in 1998.
The National Justice Party (Parti Keadilan) was formed by Anwar and his staunch loyalists. It was a multiracial political party but changed its name to People’s Justice Party (Parti Keadilan Rakyat, PKR) in 2003 with the cooperation of Malaysian People’s Party (Parti Rakyat Malaysia, PRM) led by Syed Husin Ali.
However, the party fared poorly in the 1999 and 2004 general elections and people were pessimistic on the future of the party.
When Anwar was released from jail in September 2004, he had put in a lot of effort to portray PKR as a Malay-centric political party. With Chinese and Indians also playing their roles, the party performed outstandingly in the 2008 and 2013 general elections.
But the Malay community especially the rural folks had still not accepted the party. Basically, Malays were supporting Umno and PAS. In other words, PKR was still unable to replace Umno.
In view of that, Mahathir was forced to form a party which resembles Umno.
This proves that even if Malaysia has been independent for 59 years, racial politics still has its selling point and has its market.
Until now there is not a truly multi-racial political party which has become mainstream in Malaysian politics. In view of this, Mahathir’s intention is understandable.
However, until now Umno has not been defeated by any political party, and Mahathir should know this very well as he was the longest serving prime minister cum Umno president. I wonder how is he going to counter his old friends in the coming general election?
Cheah See Kian writes for Kwong Wah Yit Poh
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